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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Please explain resurrection
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Reading the OP again, which seemed to me to be taking a clear, realistic view of the idea of resurrection, I can see that, yes, the idea of any kind of life following death in some form or another could be considered as a comfortand have, as usual, found the subsequent posts very interesting. I hope I have time to ask Joanna Elizabeth
Her views on this when Ivisit the Sisters of Bethany in February.
Apart from the fact that one way or another the physical matter of our bodies reverts to being atoms, or something, scientifically, resurrection or continuing existence of any aspect of our personality hasn’t got a leg to stand on, has it? All ideas of and thoughts of spirits, souls, etc need a living brain to be thought of or imagined.
I do not know any atheists who fool themselves into thinking that any aspect or part of them will live again in any way.
If we have children, our genes will be passed on and we hope we will be remembered by those we have known. Even when I believed there was god, the possibility of something after death made no sense and I have never seen or heard anything since which could even begin to persuade me otherwise.**
The story of a person coming to life again after death does, I believe, have a place In many ancient cultures, but Science has moved a long way since then, hasn’t it?
**So why would I be sad if I had to leave
SoF?!! It’s the people of course. It’s just lovely to be a part of a group who love to present their views, find out the views of others, and communicate, communicate, communicate!
’ views,discuss,
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What are the laws of physics in the spirit world? They are what they have to be in this, so what do they have to be in that?
I think that is the right way to think about it.
The laws of physics are about the fact that the stability of the physical world depends on, or springs from, the existence of universal, unchanging laws that govern the behavior of matter.
Surely it is not that difficult to imagine a parallel set of laws that exist on a spiritual plane, and that govern life there.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
I think Resurrection theology must be grounded on the theology of the love of God, not on whatever mechanics or what form of "body" we might have. If resurrection is about entering into eternity, talking about eating or drinking or marriage does not make much sense to me, considering that our earth and universe will physically end eventually.
The metaphors of a great feast or banquet at the end of time are rich and wonderful metaphors for the age to come. But they are still metaphors , signs or descriptors of a reality we can't fully comprehend or grasp.
Resurrection theology is grounded on the mystery of God's love for us. For God, who has no beginning, and not end, yet, whose nature is unbounded, unconditional, divine and incomprehensible love, is more powerful than the grave. And it is in that love, that I believe knows no end, is where we place our ultimate hope, speculation about where disability or eating or drinking, notstanding.
[ 08. January 2016, 18:03: Message edited by: Anglican_Brat ]
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
**So why would I be sad if I had to leave
SoF?!! It’s the people of course. It’s just lovely to be a part of a group who love to present their views, find out the views of others, and communicate, communicate, communicate!
I have no wish for you to leave SoF SusanDoris.
The "T" word is banded about way too freely these days.
I'm always more than happy to discuss massive issues with anyone who believe science alone can, and will, provide every answer to every question that every human is capable of asking.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Apart from the fact that one way or another the physical matter of our bodies reverts to being atoms, or something, scientifically, resurrection or continuing existence of any aspect of our personality hasn’t got a leg to stand on, has it? All ideas of and thoughts of spirits, souls, etc need a living brain to be thought of or imagined.
I do not know any atheists who fool themselves into thinking that any aspect or part of them will live again in any way.
It's telling that you think that anyone who considers life after death to be a possibility is fooling him or her self.
I have met atheists who still believe that they will see their loved ones after death even though they don't believe that God exists. More people believe in angels and in heaven than those who say that they believe in God.
To you, our existence is inextricably linked to our physical bodies, so much so that nothing can exist unless it can be processed by a human brain? I find that extraordinary.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
I think Resurrection theology must be grounded on the theology of the love of God, not on whatever mechanics or what form of "body" we might have.
Great point. I think it is just a matter of our efforts to get our heads around the idea.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
I think Resurrection theology must be grounded on the theology of the love of God, not on whatever mechanics or what form of "body" we might have.
Great point. I think it is just a matter of our efforts to get our heads around the idea.
Buildings are "grounded" on the bedrock but people still talk meaningfully about the furnishings in the upper floors.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
All ideas of and thoughts of spirits, souls, etc need a living brain to be thought of or imagined.
Clearly not. People have been thinking of and imagining an afterlife for tens of thousands of years. And people continue to do so up to this very minute. Your claim here is patently incorrect.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
The fact that atheists can believe in an afterlife, and that indeed a percentage of them do, is well documented.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
All ideas of and thoughts of spirits, souls, etc need a living brain to be thought of or imagined.
Clearly not. People have been thinking of and imagining an afterlife for tens of thousands of years. And people continue to do so up to this very minute. Your claim here is patently incorrect.
Turn off my brain with an anaesthetic and I stop thinking, being conscious and feeling that I'm me. Let it be damaged by a stroke or injury and my awareness may be very impaired and my personality may change. Cut off my head and it seems logical that I will be gone for ever.
Christians and atheists alike know this and worry about it. In life at least our consciousness seems entirely dependent on our brains, so why should, say, the final stoppage of oxygenated blood to a severely damaged brain not complete the work of many years of mini strokes?
But this discussion has shifted to the afterlife, which is not the same as resurrection.
Resurrection, I maintain, is about the defeat of death's power to cripple life.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Aye, but they have no rational basis for it. To atheistically believe in an afterlife, a beyond; a 'spirit', super-natural, meta-natural matrix tracelessly extending the physical - which includes mind - is to believe in a physics with no meaningful entropy. Which is what the multiverse entails on a 'smaller' (Cantor and all that: a lesser infinity) scale. Mind does not survive aging let alone death. How can it or anything transcend a material world?
It's simpler, neater not to give such nonsense the time of day. Which of course applies to theism too. Existence is ineffably, eternally strange. De-localized quantum entangled indeterminate electron pairs communicating instantaneously over irrelevant distance. Dark energy. These HAVE to be so and we haven't the faintest idea why and never will. Why bring an Exister in to it?
Jesus.
He's the explanation.
The assault on the senses, on rationality. It means that this infinite material mystery is the lowest holodeck. And as below so above, if Daniel and John are anything to go by. With meta-gravity. Meta-mechanics. Meta-optics. Meta-vision. Meta-chemistry. Meta-biology. Meta-psychology.
It means that God is the penultimate infinity. The penultimate set.
And without a trace except in our thinking from that One intrusion, excession, in to the noosphere.
And that.
[ 09. January 2016, 09:04: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Turn off my brain with an anaesthetic and I stop thinking, being conscious and feeling that I'm me. Let it be damaged by a stroke or injury and my awareness may be very impaired and my personality may change. Cut off my head and it seems logical that I will be gone for ever.
Christians and atheists alike know this and worry about it. In life at least our consciousness seems entirely dependent on our brains, so why should, say, the final stoppage of oxygenated blood to a severely damaged brain not complete the work of many years of mini strokes?
Yeah, yeah, but you've moved the goalposts. The claim was that it isn't even imaginable. Clearly it is. Claim refuted. Next.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
All ideas of and thoughts of spirits, souls, etc need a living brain to be thought of or imagined.
Clearly not. People have been thinking of and imagining an afterlife for tens of thousands of years. And people continue to do so up to this very minute. Your claim here is patently incorrect.
I'm not quite sure what you mean! All those people had living brains when they were thinking those thoughts, didn't they?
[ 09. January 2016, 17:01: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Turn off my brain with an anaesthetic and I stop thinking, being conscious and feeling that I'm me. Let it be damaged by a stroke or injury and my awareness may be very impaired and my personality may change. Cut off my head and it seems logical that I will be gone for ever.
Christians and atheists alike know this and worry about it. In life at least our consciousness seems entirely dependent on our brains, so why should, say, the final stoppage of oxygenated blood to a severely damaged brain not complete the work of many years of mini strokes?
Yeah, yeah, but you've moved the goalposts. The claim was that it isn't even imaginable. Clearly it is. Claim refuted. Next.
Actually, I think SusanDoris was saying you need a brain to imagine.
I was pointing out that if a damaged brain damages consciousness then no brain might mean no consciousness.
Funny arguing style that announces someone's point is clearly wrong and says 'Claim refuted. Next.' I think your snappy style is missing all the points.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Perhaps it would help if people said what they mean. She said it's not imaginable. I took her words at face value. It's easily imaginable. If she meant it's unexplainable given what we know about how brains and thoughts work (which let's face it isn't much), that's another call. But she didn't say that. She made an unsupportable and patently false claim. That's not helpful in a discussion like this, although all too common, whether from the religion or anti-religion side.
Saying "a brain thought those thoughts" is a million miles from "it is necessary to have a brain to think those thoughts." Going from "A did X" to "X can't exist without A" is not a valid mode of inference.
What it really boils down to is, "there is no scientific explanation* of how thought could happen without a brain." To get to "thought cannot happen in a scientifically unexplainable way" you add "and only scientific explanations are acceptable," which is to say you have to drag in scientism, and we're right back to our usual resting place. Susan expounds scientism; others reject it. Deadlock.
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*a humble person would add 'at the current time' at this point in the sentence
[ 09. January 2016, 17:20: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Her's a potential analogy, make of it what you will. A damaged TV might project/display a distorted image of what the EM signal contains. If it is broken bad enough, or you have no TV, you can't decode the signal at all. From this you cannot conclude, however, that the signal does not exist.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Perhaps it would help if people said what they mean. She said it's not imaginable. I took her words at face value. It's easily imaginable. If she meant it's unexplainable given what we know about how brains and thoughts work (which let's face it isn't much), that's another call. But she didn't say that. She made an unsupportable and patently false claim. That's not helpful in a discussion like this, although all too common, whether from the religion or anti-religion side.
No, she said that thoughts and ideas needed to be thought or imagined by a brain. You may disagree, but it's hardly insupportable or patently false. We know of nothing other than a brain that can think and imagine.
To protest that of course something is imaginable is a bizarre misreading. Anything, including nonsense, is imaginable, so why would someone deny that?
The idea of the brain as a receiver of thoughts was put forward by Rupert Sheldrake amongst others. There's no good evidence I know of for this. If brains were receivers, a very different mode of working from being creators and processors of thoughts, you would expect this to show. Ideas might crop up in distant people simultaneously (what RSheldrake thinks), perhaps in huge numbers of people at once.
Brain damage should have effects that reveal the way the brain works. We know that there are areas for language, for sight, etc. If the brain is a receiver there ought to be bits analogous to an aerial and a tuner. Damage to these would cut the brain off from its signal, even though the rest of it were intact. This doesn't seem to happen, though.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
Its interesting how people are happy to imagine all sorts of after-worlds no two of them exactly alike. And postulate things like "spiritual substance", "spiritual worlds" . All things for which there is no solid evidence whatsoever. But when people bring up what the evidence we actually have points to its "scientism", or its preposterous to believe.
What is the "essence" of a human being? As people have pointed out we are a particular kind of animal that is the product of billions of years of evolution. There is no solid boundary between us and other animals. I find it strange to believe that there is a "me" that would survive my body. Actually the boundary between "me" and the rest of the world is a self imposed illusion that is useful for survival nothing more. If "I" believe "I" can exist independently of "other" people animals or simply the material world around "me". I would snap out of it pretty quickly when dumped in the vacuum of outer space.
This particular body is all anybody else would describe as "me" and if there is anything else
that could survive the destruction of the body nobody has ever found any evidence for it.
[ 09. January 2016, 20:45: Message edited by: Ikkyu ]
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
What signal?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The idea of the brain as a receiver of thoughts was put forward by Rupert Sheldrake amongst others. There's no good evidence I know of for this. If brains were receivers, a very different mode of working from being creators and processors of thoughts, you would expect this to show. Ideas might crop up in distant people simultaneously (what RSheldrake thinks), perhaps in huge numbers of people at once.
Brain damage should have effects that reveal the way the brain works. We know that there are areas for language, for sight, etc. If the brain is a receiver there ought to be bits analogous to an aerial and a tuner. Damage to these would cut the brain off from its signal, even though the rest of it were intact. This doesn't seem to happen, though.
It seems to me that you're taking the analogy too literally, and then extrapolating from it even further in order to discount it. Even if the brain was literally a receiver, there would still be no need to assume that there are thoughts being broadcast so that multiple people can receive the same thought. The question boils down to whether or not there is more to our mind than our physical brain and body.
As for evidence that there is more to our mind than our physical brain, I can see why some people come to the conclusion that there isn't, but I don't see how that's the only reasonable conclusion. We know that what we call "seeing" starts with light coming into our eyes, which then triggers electrical nerve impulses that travel to the visual cortex, which in turn triggers other electrical nerve impulses throughout our brain to interpret the signals from the eye nerves and do a lot processing and pattern matching, including recognizing what we're seeing, retrieving memory associations, and responding to what we think we see. However, there is nothing to suggest how our brain could then use these electrical impulses to somehow produce what we experience in our conscious awareness as mental images, or how it allows us to "see" or "hear" and be aware of our own thoughts that are triggered as part of our response.
Could it all be inherent in the physical brain processes going on? Sure, but there is no more evidence to support that idea than the idea that there is something separate from our brain that is interpreting the brain activity. It may not be scientific evidence, but for me personally, it is very convincing mental evidence that I am more than my brain and body.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Yeah it's 50:50, either/or ...
Like the evidence for God.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
(snip)
Could it all be inherent in the physical brain processes going on? Sure, but there is no more evidence to support that idea than the idea that there is something separate from our brain that is interpreting the brain activity. It may not be scientific evidence, but for me personally, it is very convincing mental evidence that I am more than my brain and body.
You were describing vision using scientific ideas that needed nothing "separate" from the brain.
There is experimental evidence for your description of how vision works (Of course a Neuroscientist might quibble here and there with your description but i'm not one)
There are decades of increasingly more detailed
and explanatory studies supporting the "brain only" side. What is the evidence for the other side?
What is this "very convincing" mental evidence that is as good as the other one? What is this "other thing" separate from the brain, we all have? Does it have a measurable effect on the brain? You don't explain.
[ 09. January 2016, 23:33: Message edited by: Ikkyu ]
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
Of course I use scientific ideas to describe the physical activity of the brain - that's what science is for.
The mental evidence that convinces me that there is something more is my experience of my own self awareness.
Where is the evidence that physical matter can be arranged in such a way as to generate awareness the way people experience it, even in a small degree? Do you think a sufficiently complex computer might be able to experience similar self awareness?
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Of course I use scientific ideas to describe the physical activity of the brain - that's what science is for.
The mental evidence that convinces me that there is something more is my experience of my own self awareness.
Where is the evidence that physical matter can be arranged in such a way as to generate awareness the way people experience it, even in a small degree? Do you think a sufficiently complex computer might be able to experience similar self awareness?
About evidence for matter being arranged in such a way as generating awareness. Every being that I have perceived as aware (and that includes other animals as well as men) has a body composed of a very intricate arrangement of matter. I have never seen or heard evidence of awareness existing in a "disembodied" state. And as has been mentioned before physical alterations to the brain do in fact alter its functioning. Exactly
like the materialist explanation predicts. How does a "non-physical" mind explain this?
Also you did not explain how that "non-physical" part of the brain interacts with the physical.
So your alternate explanation seems incomplete.
About computers so far we seem to be further from the goal of a self aware computer than many people had predicted we would be by this stage.
That does not mean I believe its impossible in principle but its one of those problems that seems hard enough that we won't really know until we find definite proof one way or the other and its hard to predict which way it will fall.
Maybe artificial self aware brains will have to be "grown" or "evolved" in some organic way but that's just speculation on my part.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I'm going to drop the imagine thing. I can't imagine it will do any good to continue down that path.
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The idea of the brain as a receiver of thoughts was put forward by Rupert Sheldrake amongst others. There's no good evidence I know of for this. If brains were receivers, a very different mode of working from being creators and processors of thoughts, you would expect this to show. Ideas might crop up in distant people simultaneously (what RSheldrake thinks), perhaps in huge numbers of people at once.
I posited that as an analogy, not as a theory. Merely to say there are potential ways of explaining why brain damage affects thought other than positing that thought cannot happen without a brain. Not to say that this particular explanation is the right one.
You missed this part of my post. I hope you will get to it later.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Saying "a brain thought those thoughts" is a million miles from "it is necessary to have a brain to think those thoughts." Going from "A did X" to "X can't exist without A" is not a valid mode of inference.
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
About evidence for matter being arranged in such a way as generating awareness. Every being that I have perceived as aware (and that includes other animals as well as men) has a body composed of a very intricate arrangement of matter. I have never seen or heard evidence of awareness existing in a "disembodied" state.
This is question-begging.
quote:
And as has been mentioned before physical alterations to the brain do in fact alter its functioning. Exactly
like the materialist explanation predicts. How does a "non-physical" mind explain this?
One potential explanation is the receiver thing as has been discussed above. Of course a busted receiver is going to mangle the signal. This may or may not be what's going on, but it's not like there's no possible explanation.
quote:
Also you did not explain how that "non-physical" part of the brain interacts with the physical.
So your alternate explanation seems incomplete.
This is the Achilles' heel of the "theory" of the non-material soul. Descartes the interchange between body and "mind" took place through the pituitary gland. I don't suppose even the most diehard dualists these days go for that.
(Gotta fly right now; will respond to more later)
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
And as has been mentioned before physical alterations to the brain do in fact alter its functioning. Exactly
like the materialist explanation predicts. How does a "non-physical" mind explain this?
The functioning of a legal trial that takes place in a court room can be altered by physically changing the court room or by moving it to a different venue, but that does not imply that the court room causes the trial. The trial does need to be "embodied" in some kind of forum and the particulars of the chosen forum will affect how the trial manifests itself as it proceeds, but that does not imply that the court room is identical to the trial. The trial has its own reality above and beyond the court room per se.
quote:
Also you did not explain how that "non-physical" part of the brain interacts with the physical.
So your alternate explanation seems incomplete.
Of course it's incomplete - I never attempted to present it as such. Are you suggesting that your explanation is complete?
I'm not trying to prove my point of view, or convince you of it's accuracy, or change your mind. I'm objecting to the idea that the "brain-only" view you describe is complete and sufficient enough to make the alternate view unreasonable. I continue to give both views serious consideration from time to time and often ask myself which seems more believable. I just always end up at the question of how to explain my own self awareness and I come to the conclusion that an extra-physical explanation is less outrageous than a "physical-only" explanation.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Mousethief, I’ve re-read my post and I don’t see how you could have thought I said ‘it’s not imaginable’, but I see that Hatless and Ikkyu have responded better than I could.
[ 10. January 2016, 05:46: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Mousethief, I’ve re-read my post and I don’t see how you could have thought I said ‘it’s not imaginable’, but I see that Hatless and Ikkyu have responded better than I could.
As I have said, I've dropped this. I suggest we all do.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
W Hyatt wrote:
quote:
I'm not trying to prove my point of view, or convince you of it's accuracy, or change your mind. I'm objecting to the idea that the "brain-only" view you describe is complete and sufficient enough to make the alternate view unreasonable. I continue to give both views serious consideration from time to time and often ask myself which seems more believable. I just always end up at the question of how to explain my own self awareness and I come to the conclusion that an extra-physical explanation is less outrageous than a "physical-only" explanation.
I don't think the extra-physical is outrageous; it just doesn't seem subject to any metric. How would we go about describing it, when most of our terms are suited to a physical world with physical measurements?
Well, it's possible that we're all in the Matrix, but in a sense, that idea is uninteresting, because there is no method whereby we could say if it's true or false, (as far as I'm aware).
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
I think we need to take more seriously the relational quality of human self-hood. We too easily focus on the existential anxieties of the lonely small hours: will I survive? As if I was the thinking entity in my skull.
But I am the person who knows who he is because of the way those who know me respond to me. I am the player who inhabits and interacts with the representations in my mind of the people who are important to me. I am the person who discovers he has been having an effect on people I haven't seen for months, because they have been thinking about me.
I am not changeless. When I am lost in a book, when I am amongst strangers, when I am with my family, at work, walking alone, making music or taken out of myself by great art, then I am different, my way of being alters. I am a child of my time, different from my parents and my children because the world moves on, the social and political climate changes - these things are influencing me all the time.
So who am I? Where is my being? My brain is where I am according to one sort of answer, but I am also in the relationships I've committed to, and in the causes I care about. Part of me is invested in the Kingdom of God (to be pious) and does not depend on me and my power. My faith tells me that when, in love, I lose my self, then I gain my self.
I think it's possible to free ourselves from the Cartesian brain-in-the-dark model and conceive of ourselves as embedded, contextual and as a function of our allegiances and longings. A shifting personhood emerging from the polyphonic interplay of our complex relational networks, captured better by poetry than an electro-encephalogram.
And this, I think, is where resurrection must be understood. What sort of life is beyond the power of death? What sort of life rises again? The answer must be the life founded on love like that we see in Jesus.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
It's just as well the Gospel is so simple! Why not accept that as God raised Jesus so he will raise us to and that we will live whole and complete with him in eternity.
All this philosophical argument and deliberation has got me lost - even with a BA Hons in Theology and Ministry!
[ 10. January 2016, 18:34: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
British understatement at its finest.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Hatless
Super posts, as usual, which is why I always wonder, why isn't this man an atheist?!! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[ 11. January 2016, 05:51: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
I'd better add that of course no slur on anyone else implied.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Why not accept that as God raised Jesus so he will raise us to and that we will live whole and complete with him in eternity.
Which means nothing at all. It just takes us back to the question in the OP.
Is there even such a thing as 'eternity'? I like what hatless said about living on in relationships and the memories of others, this is true and makes perfect sense. Anything else seems to be pure conjecture - philosophy/theology, call it what you will.
Of course there is hope that there is an entropy-free 'somewhere' that we somehow have completely new bodies which contain 'us'. But the idea (whist being full of hope and comfort) is no more real than the Rainbow Bridge as far as I can see.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Why not accept that as God raised Jesus so he will raise us to and that we will live whole and complete with him in eternity.
Which means nothing at all. It just takes us back to the question in the OP.
Is there even such a thing as 'eternity'? I like what hatless said about living on in relationships and the memories of others, this is true and makes perfect sense. Anything else seems to be pure conjecture - philosophy/theology, call it what you will.
Of course there is hope that there is an entropy-free 'somewhere' that we somehow have completely new bodies which contain 'us'. But the idea (whist being full of hope and comfort) is no more real than the Rainbow Bridge as far as I can see.
Which, to me, is called faith. Faith is precisely that hope that a creative force is there which is capable, ultimately, of overcoming the many forces of destruction we see at work in our lives day by day. It is hope that this creative principle will ultimately overcome destruction in ways of which we currently receive only hints: tiny clues to the life that is yet to come into being. That, for me, is resurrection. Not a complex idea to explain, but it takes a lifetime (at least) to live out.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Which, to me, is called faith. Faith is precisely that hope that a creative force is there which is capable, ultimately, of overcoming the many forces of destruction we see at work in our lives day by day. It is hope that this creative principle will ultimately overcome destruction in ways of which we currently receive only hints: tiny clues to the life that is yet to come into being. That, for me, is resurrection. Not a complex idea to explain, but it takes a lifetime (at least) to live out.
So it's only available to those who have faith and live a lifetime full of faith?
What do you mean by 'destruction'?
I get these hints and tiny clues all the time, especially that my Dad is still around - but I am a very imaginative and creative person, there is nothing whatever that tells me these experiences are not from within myself.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Which, to me, is called faith. Faith is precisely that hope that a creative force is there which is capable, ultimately, of overcoming the many forces of destruction we see at work in our lives day by day. It is hope that this creative principle will ultimately overcome destruction in ways of which we currently receive only hints: tiny clues to the life that is yet to come into being. That, for me, is resurrection. Not a complex idea to explain, but it takes a lifetime (at least) to live out.
So it's only available to those who have faith and live a lifetime full of faith?
What do you mean by 'destruction'?
I get these hints and tiny clues all the time, especially that my Dad is still around - but I am a very imaginative and creative person, there is nothing whatever that tells me these experiences are not from within myself.
I am coming at this from a perspective of faith, so those are the terms in which I explain it. The other mysterious force at work, which seems at times so cruelly arbitrary in its operation but which I nevertheless experience as a force of love, is grace. I think what you are describing is the barely discernible, barely comprehensible operation of grace, which leaves those hints behind and equips us to follow them. Or not.
I'm not condemning those whose experience is different; what I'm trying to do is to point out the unhealthy link between understanding and control, which are linked through the roots of the word "comprehend". To understand something is to control it, to nail it down and to prevent it from growing. Faith is something different: it is the discernment of fugitive movement and a determination to be open to that movement and its effects, and to resist the urge to comprehend, to nail down, because of its deathly effect on this fugitive life-force.
ETA: reading back through what I have written, I have implied a near-equation between faith and grace, which I have to conclude is probably right. I have no idea otherwise why some people have faith and others don't - it can only be by the incomprehensible, apparently inchoate operation of grace.
[ 11. January 2016, 08:26: Message edited by: ThunderBunk ]
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I have implied a near-equation between faith and grace, which I have to conclude is probably right. I have no idea otherwise why some people have faith and others don't - it can only be by the incomprehensible, apparently inchoate operation of grace.
Or why some people have faith in bucket loads, then lose it.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
I also have a strong sense of the presence of grace in life. I don't conceive it as a personal power, a God that exists, but when I am low, when I am stuck, when I've had to conclude that life or some aspect of it makes no sense at all and lacks worth, sometimes, often, the unexpected comes along and turns me round.
Good stuff happens as well as bad, of course, and we are poor at judging probabilities or what is or isn't a coincidence. It maybe says something about human nature or my nature that I can find myself questioning myself and my life to a disturbing degree, letting a problem empty me of the very resources I need to deal with it. It maybe says something about us all that people will do the astonishing and generous thing. But it certainly feels, over and over, as if the world bumps into me with a great big smile on its face. Usually a smile in a place, or on a face, I've been refusing to look at.
I can't be sure I'll bump into something good next time I need it. I don't think the world is managed for my benefit. Maybe I'm just saying it's hard to be miserable for a very long time. I don't think there's any intervention going on here. But I am so glad of these experiences of grace that I receive and remember them, and trust that, so far, they are telling me something important about the nature of the world.
It's much the same with beauty. Does beauty exist? Do I see it? Do you? Do I choose to see it? I have no clear answers to any of these, but a sense of beauty is important to me. If I could no longer find beauty I would be lost. (Grace, though, whispers that it's amazing what you can find beauty in.)
I spent a long time last night going through the hundreds of letters my mother received when my father died, fairly young. I was sixteen and it felt like the end of everything. What does resurrection mean for Dad or me?
What I wanted, for many years, was to discover it had all been a mistake and for him to walk back through the door. But you grow up, live a bit, realise he would be aging, too, and that the most miraculous resurrection you could dream up wouldn't give you back what you want. The loss of those years of being a son with a father is permanent.
I realised one day that what I most missed, his example, encouragement and guidance, was still there. I lived deeply in my memories of him, painful though it was. Things I recalled but that made little sense made more sense as I grew in understanding. I did have a sense, not quite as I wanted it, but powerful nonetheless, of growing up with the company of my father alongside me.
After last night's immersion in those letters I would say that he is a bit more alive, his influence on me stronger and easier to share, his early death less defining. There has been a further degree of resurrection. I will keep working on it, because it's my resurrection, too.
I am an atheist, in your terms, SusanDoris. I don't believe in anything more than you do. Our world view is the same. I'm just trying to make atheistic sense of Christianity. I need a sense that the world us beautiful and life good, I need trust and hope and meaning. I want to find them not breaking in from outside, but in the human, worldly and commonplace. Easter in ordinary, to borrow a fine phrase. Resurrection for me and Dad, and not in another world, but here and now, reaching and redeeming the years back to my childhood and on into the future.
A very nice letter from Trevor Huddleston CR amongst all the others.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I thought it was grace that led me away from Christianity, to a new place, where I have found a non-home, if I can put it that way. I mean, it was grace that led me in, and grace that led me away.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Or not! Just remembering a great quote from Bowie, that he wrote about the highlights of his life, loneliness, anxiety and abandonment. But yes, there is love.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Why not accept that as God raised Jesus so he will raise us to and that we will live whole and complete with him in eternity.
Which means nothing at all. It just takes us back to the question in the OP.
Is there even such a thing as 'eternity'? I like what hatless said about living on in relationships and the memories of others, this is true and makes perfect sense.
Yes, but it's not 'me' is it?
I want to be me - conscious, sentient, individual.
I don't want to be a memory or a dispersed collection of DNA.
I don't want to be uploaded to a collective mind or absorbed into a sea of consciousness.
I want to be myself, loved and in relationship with God and others.
That's what resurrection is - anything else and I'd be a Buddhist or even an atheist.
And having said that the Christian faith is not just about 'me' wanting to live forever, it's about relationship with God in Christ. I have been offered that reconciliation with God into eternity where nothing will separate me from his love. He knows me and one day I will know him as perfectly.
I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes – I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
That is my desire and hope - it's so important to me I had the first line tattooed on my bicep.
It's my resurrection hope.
[ 11. January 2016, 15:22: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
But that is your resurrection hope.
Me personally, I hope that resurrection takes me out of this tiresome self and I am caught up into something broader and wider perhaps the great praise of heaven.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
But that is your resurrection hope.
Me personally, I hope that resurrection takes me out of this tiresome self and I am caught up into something broader and wider perhaps the great praise of heaven.
Jengie
My resurrection hope necessarily includes Jesus and a 'me' that, as you say is broader and wider - change from this creature that I am, but still me as an individual.
If Jesus is not there, it won't be heaven.
Resurrection is pointless if he is not there.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I don't want to be a memory or a dispersed collection of DNA.
I don't want to be uploaded to a collective mind or absorbed into a sea of consciousness.
I want to be myself, loved and in relationship with God and others.
But you are not an individual - you are part of the Body of Christ.
Indispensable yes but egotist no.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
If you want to see Jesus, look at your neighbour, especially those in need. He said as much.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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